


Failure

by greendragon_templar



Category: The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells
Genre: M/M, and play chess, i didn't know it would be hard to write to write a story w/ two male characters, the narrator doesn't just run off, they have a chat, until they both didn't have names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 04:09:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12879879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greendragon_templar/pseuds/greendragon_templar
Summary: At this point, it's too late to convince the artilleryman that anything is wrong.





	Failure

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive any pronoun confusion, I did my best to make the whole thing reasonably coherent. But essentially, I wrote this because on re-reading the chapter in the novel it seemed to me that the soldier had this quite genuine affection for the narrator - almost love, despite the circumstances. Probably because he took him reasonably seriously.

Behind the bushes, listening intently to gushing talk of victory and glory, of the bleak future that only the worthy will elude, something of the tragic state of the world is muted. The red weed ceases to glow; the Martians’ outcries are silenced. The fear altogether passes away.

Acceptance is the best part of any of it. To no longer deny or abhor the possibility that England no longer rules the world – or indeed, that the world rules itself – makes the torture of it all somewhat more tolerable. It would feel like giving up but for the soldier’s plans, and it is from them that comes the _hope_. And everything would be good again, _clear_ again, but for the sight of that tunnel. For in less than a second, the feeble effort lights a spark, and that spark does not die. It glows hot, unquenchable, for the whole wretched evening, with no intent to cease.

It is a fire of doubt, and it burns far worse than the heat-ray.

Now, it’s late, and the man from Woking almost feels sober. It’s not a particularly enjoyable sensation, above all because he _still_ can’t shut everything off, unable to stop questioning all the ideas of the man in front of him. They’re foreign and unearthly ideas, once terrifying, and now cold in his brain; if the barrier of reason wasn’t there, maybe everything would be easier.

In the real world, there’s the faint, coarse sound of wood on wood, and the table between them rocks on its unsteady legs.

“Your move,” says the artilleryman dully, but he’s still smiling; his hand, dark brown, shakes around his champagne glass.

“Alright.” A bishop, white as ivory, slides across the chess board almost immediately. The move’s been pondered for several minutes, almost enough to end their third chess game of the night. The man from Woking glances upward, very quickly, rubbing a hand into his hairline. Black and unreadable, the artilleryman’s eyes are never still; they dart from one end of the cellar to the other, glistening in the lamplight, bloodshot.

He sighs, drains his glass, and knocks over all the pieces he’s claimed with a swipe of his hand.

“I used to be good at this, would you believe it?”

“Don’t be discouraged. I’ve had far too much leisure in my life, and chess always seemed like a decent way to make up for it.”

He laughs, carelessly and loudly. The sound echoes in the small space and rasps when he speaks again. “Didn’t need leisure to get good at chess. But that’s all right. I’ll concede. Very well-played.” A long draught of his cigar silences him for a few moments, and it is almost if they can hear the whistling of the wind through the red weed that’s bunched up against the walls of the house, forming a thick and immoveable prison.

“It’s quiet.”

“Yes.” So quiet, in fact, that the Martians could be anywhere, and neither of them would know. They are bound to this life by a _thread_.

“Now, we may as well be the only men left in the world,” the artilleryman says, and sloppily refills his glass until the bottle is empty, indelicately putting it back against the earthen wall. Almost by nature, now, his companion leans forward to glance outside, with a pounding heart, almost _waiting_ for death. “Eh? It’s true. And it doesn’t bother me a bit.”

“Why not?”

“Well, what need do I have any more for officers and hussars? No one needs people like that. They didn’t do us any good when it counted. They didn’t make it out. _I_ did.”

It feels almost gratuitous to remind him, in his pathetic state, talking as loftily and confidently as he does, that his own survival was of no merit – that he crawled out of a ditch with a bad back, stinking, his mind in tatters, and all because his horse stumbled. He didn’t fight his way out of anything. His survival is almost meaningless.

“If any of them were still alive, they’d be here, asking ‘what next?’, saluting _me_.” He grows slightly wistful. “But that won’t happen, and I’m content being alone.”

“No one can be content by themselves, for eternity.”

“What rubbish. I’ve held the fort just fine here.”

“Until I arrived.”

A smile, broad and self-satisfied - almost fond. “And I am glad of it.”

The soldier appears not to notice how the conversation has come full circle, and that he has ultimately dismantled his own argument. He rambles on in a similar fashion for several minutes, between sips of drink, and his speech slows, growing more and more laboured. Trying to get out of his chair, his hand grips the back until the knuckles pale, and his feet catch on one another.

The man from Woking absentmindedly catches the artilleryman’s sleeve before he falls, only to withdraw just as quickly; this close, it is punishingly noticeable that neither have changed clothes in weeks. Moreover, the artilleryman still carries the scent of burnt meat wherever he goes.

It’s still extremely familiar, a sensation impressed on the mind by the dire horror of the original situation. This was the smell that came into his house, that night so, so long ago, when the man from Woking watched him at the dining table, convulsing with sobs, inarticulate, and offered him whiskey.

Their relations haven’t really changed – still, they’re eating and drinking and telling stories. Except, the first time, the story was believable. Watching the artilleryman now – coated in blood and filth, with his distant expressions and jittery fingers and groundless optimism – things are no longer convincing. If they were the last two people in England – in the _world_ – he would still be mad. He is only able to conceal it, to make it seem normal, because of his sheer vivacity, and that anybody he talks to will be so empty they’ll believe anything that comes out of his mouth.

As it is, the artilleryman stands at the other side of the cellar, still a bit unsteady on his feet, pausing between gasps at the cigar to turn his head aside and feel around the cut on the lower side of his face. Away from the lamplight, absorbed by the shadows, he is almost invisible.

“And you believe me. You believe everything I’ve said, don’t you?”

“It’s the first plan I’ve come across. You seem very confident.” The man from Woking ought to say more, but he can’t; it’s already like lying to a child, so quickly do the words spurt out of his mouth. The doubts from earlier in the day, the reconsiderations – none of them have dissipated. In all likelihood, they never will, and whether he stays or goes (still no decision, _yet_ , on this front), he will be haunted.

 _Oh, one can’t always work_. What hope in the world does a man with these thoughts have of being king of _anything_?

“Good. That’s good. I’ve been bottling it up, you see – I’ve been desperate to have someone else understand. Hope is here, and nobody else has found it yet! Didn’t get the chance to persuade anyone else.”

“You do have some selective criteria. I thought you might cast me out.”

“Oh, it’s hardly a crime to want our breed, in future, to have some integrity. It’s for the best, isn’t it?”

It is impossible to respond to that.

“There’s another bottle.” The artilleryman clambers around on the dirt floor, almost on hands and knees, until he finds his prize, and gets to work on screwing out the cork. He is watched, almost in a daze; the man from Woking feels the effect of the champagne strike him for the first time, in one light-headed rush, and then a slight ache behind the eyes. Nevertheless, he holds out his glass obediently, knocking over the rest of the chess pieces.

“To my friend,” begins the artilleryman, “to a good, long life—to somewhere far apart from those creatures—to health and happiness and life—God knows we deserve better.” His gaze is glassy, his voice is impassioned, but the champagne has rendered it almost savage, absurd and hoarse. _A speech of small variety and considerable intermittence._ In a moment, it almost turns into a prayer. “God make us grateful that we are thinking men, of a good sort. The world needs more like us. Once the rest of London recognises civilisation is dead, they’ll be here. They’ll be here, and they’ll hate themselves that they didn’t come earlier.”

The artilleryman turns, and grins. “That’s right. You and I are the start.”

The other man begins to feel confined, but he is too lethargic to move, at the time – too stupid to do anything. In any other world, in any other circumstances, nothing about this would be tolerable. Already, there is plenty to hate – the excess, the gluttony, the laziness, the hypocrisy. All of that, joined with asinine dreams, the gaping abysses between every connecting proposal. There is nothing to love and nothing to like. But the circumstances are not ideal. Since that first canister fell, his thoughts have not proceeded in the same way.

The man from Woking watches, mindless, as the artilleryman approaches him again, laughs, and his dirtied fingernails tighten against the champagne glass. He sets it down, hard, on the chessboard, and looks very intently at his companion, with some new and unseen emotion.

“It is our state of affairs. It was always meant to be you and I.”

“I am not so sure.” In his mind’s eye, he catches a bare glimpse of his wife, sent away with his cousin, so easily dead. He clenches a hand around his own neck.

“You must stay here,” presses the artilleryman. “Stay with me, and see all that is to come.”

In half a second, one visage becomes another – from the arrogance and self-assured madness of the present to the distant past: the quiet, mutual despair they shared back all those weeks ago, drowned in tears and drink.

And then, it makes _sense_ , in a way that the man from Woking fails to fully recognise at the time. After the shock and guilt from being buried under human flesh, burdens carried through miles of drains and of English countryside, just what kind of person would _not_ have their mind unravelled? The soldier could never be the same after that, and all of it has led right here – to this deserted house and deserted cellar, drinking themselves to oblivion, as both now endeavour to forget what corpses look and smell like. Yet, _still_ , he is no more sympathetic.

Of course, it’s hardly a nice thing to think about. It is better to let his mind wander, and it does, until it lands on something, a point not yet raised.

“Does it please you, then, to think about how many have already been lost – the sorts you proclaim not to like?”

“What do you mean?”

“What you told me earlier, about all those people you wouldn’t want to accept. The ones with the desk jobs. Sleeping with the wives they married for money, who have accepted their lot in life. The ones you seem to expect will come to love the Martians, in time.”

“I—“

“You would be glad to see them perish?”

The artilleryman flounders a little, blinking heavy eyes. “It isn’t that that’s what I want, it’s just what’s going to happen. I could hardly help that.”

“You could, if you did not intend to leave them to the whim of the Martians. And above that, it seems to me you have no love for the culture that people will still desire.”

“How so?’

“Concerts, operas. Poetry readings. You cannot eradicate it, and expect to retain the people’s love.”

The artilleryman has the gall to laugh. “I am not a king.”

“No, but you would try; I’m sure they will have things no other way, once you’ve captured a Fighting Machine.”

Caught, flushed, the artilleryman’s expression hardens. Retaking his seat, he blinks, slinging an arm over the back of the chair. “Be realistic. Those things don’t matter to men anymore. They’d be far too busy hiding in London alleys and scuttling out of the Martians’ view to give a damn for culture, if someone offered a way out.”

“Maybe so, but not all decent people are made for science.”

A snort, and the artilleryman kicks at the cutlass left lying on the floor. “Everything will turn out.”

“Perhaps.”

“Now you’re doubting me?” His voice is clipped. “By God, things aren’t getting any better. Don’t you want to live on?”

For a drawn-out moment, the man from Woking cannot look away from the tunnel at the end of the cellar, bottomless in the dead of night, but in fact shallower than it is possible to abide. Like this dreamer’s aspirations, it has very little substance. Before he can stop himself, he rises, treading over the piles of dirt they left haphazard when they were digging earlier. The man from Woking studies its entirety, and his hand lingers at the handle of a shovel left against the tunnel wall.

“You tell me you like to take the air. But that cannot have consumed all the time you did not spend here.”

Complete silence follows.

“Trust me, I do believe in the merit of your thoughts. What I am not convinced of is whether, in the time you’ve allowed yourself, we will ever see those results.”

“So that’s it? That’s what you think?”

“Yes.”

The artilleryman attempts to get out of his chair, but now all he can manage is to slide to the floor, weakly, elbows on his knees, and accepting the situation, smiles over his shoulder. “Alright. You are lost, and I can’t save you.”

Compelled by a force out of his control, but one he cannot help but believe is the one to follow, the man from Woking absentmindedly clings to the remains of his cigar and moves to go back upstairs. He doesn’t want to have to look back, but when a hand clumsily stretches for his shoulder, he does. The artilleryman has moved to farewell him, with the last scraps of waning, drunken energy he possesses.

Their kiss is short and regrettable. The man from Woking pulls himself away violently, and proceeds the way he intended, head murkier than the cellar’s depths. He yearns for fresh air, to escape the filth and the rotting playing cards and everything else, everything that holds him back.

But outside, he touches his fingers to his lips and swears under his breath. Out of all the evening’s damning events, that final effort at affection was the only thing which didn’t feel _wrong_. There is nothing left to do except escape his false comfort, his pity for the dreamer of such lovely things. Eventually, his brain comes together enough for him to see the shadows of London, distantly, as they really are – not a mess of drunkards, but of people. The man from Woking discards what’s left of the cigar and is gone by morning.

He cannot stay, and condone this kind of wretched, desperate attachment; surely, it will be the death of him.

 


End file.
